Ukraine Conducts Drone Rescue of Wounded Soldier From Frontline
Ukraine’s army has shown a wounded soldier evacuated by drone, calling it a historic step in casualty rescue.
The drone evacuation took place at an undisclosed time and place on the frontline, where the presence of Russian drones and landmines made it impractical to send in a wheeled ground robot, The Kyiv Independent reported. The video showed the wounded soldier securing himself in a harness beneath the drone before the flight.
The operation was revealed just days after separate Ukrainian drones designed for casualty evacuation were deployed for frontline testing, taking a step beyond the US military’s decades of experimentation with similar concepts.
“This is a historic event, the next stage of evacuating the wounded, which we will all come to,” said Napalm, a programmer of the 92nd separate assault brigade's unmanned ground systems company, who went by his callsign per Ukrainian military practice, in a statement. “Now the serious systematic work begins, so that such missions are carried out constantly.”